e main-deck
port sills were brought down to within a few inches of the boiling sea,
and the task of working the guns effectively taxed the skill of the
seamen to the utmost; so much so that Mr Howard presently sent up a
message to the skipper to ask whether it would be possible to relieve
the ship to the extent of taking the mainsail off her.

Captain Vavassour immediately issued the necessary orders; the
clew-garnets, buntlines, and leech-lines were manned at the moment that
the ship was running off the wind, the tack and sheet were eased up, and
the great sail, the most powerful in the ship, was handsomely clewed up,
as the men appointed to furl it made their way aloft. The relief to the
frigate was immediately apparent; she at once became more lively and
buoyant, and, if her speed was decreased at all, the decrease was
inappreciable.

This manoeuvre was executed during the time that the frigate's head was
being directed to the southward, for the purpose of giving the French
ship the contents of our port battery for the second time; and the guns
had just been discharged when, as the smoke blew away, we saw that our
antagonist had put her helm down and was trying to come to the wind upon
the port tack, with the object, as we supposed, of returning our fire.
But as her head swept sluggishly round and she began, with apparent
difficulty, to come-to, her mainmast went over the side, and she fell
off again without having fired a single gun. The sight of the falling
mast was greeted by our lads with an enthusiastic cheer, and then our
helm was put up to wear round upon the other tack, when the master--who
all this time had been anxiously pacing the poop--suddenly ran to the
head of the poop-ladder and shouted, "She strikes, sir! she strikes!"
and jumping upon the breech of a gun, I saw the tricolour being slowly
hauled down from the ensign staff upon which it had been hoisted when
her mizenmast fell. The Captain, too, sprang up beside me in time to
see the flag go fluttering in over the taffrail as it was hauled down.

A tremendous volley of cheering greeted the intelligence of our success;
but our joy was short-lived, for the cheering had scarcely died away and
the men turned to secure the guns, when the master came rushing down the
poop-ladder and, addressing the skipper, said:

"It is no wonder that the fellow has hauled down his colours, sir. He
has made the land, and will be ashore in ten minutes! See, sir, if